Just played my first game of the AGoT LCG. I liked it on the whole, but I felt like my deck was a bit underpowered. I was playing the Lannisters out of the start box, and my opponent was House Stark, also using the 40-card start set from that box.

To sum the game up, I was crushed by a horde of direwolves, kennel masters and Stark characters. THey seemed cheaper on the whole, and were coming out really fast. The Lannisters seemed to be really good at intrigue challenges, but pretty bad at military challenges. The Starks were great at military challenges and pretty good at power challenges. So, each round consisted of me forcing my opponent to discard a card, and then having characters killed. I came away thinking, okay, intrigue challenges are pretty weak compared to military and power challenges. This was just a first impression, mind you.

I saw a lot of potential in the game, though, especially with constructed decks. I was wondering if there are a lot more plot cards out there than the ones that come in the starter box? These seem to be important to driving a deck's strategy. Also, the rulebook mentions agenda cards, but the box does not come with any. What are those like? Are they useful for building strategies around?

I'd also like to know what the community recommends for a starting player to buy. Mostly I'll just be playing against my wife from time to time; neither of us is good enough to play these kinds of games in a competitive environment, but we do like to have theme decks and such. I'm saying this based on our experiences in Magic, though it seems like it would apply here, too.

What box sets or chapter packs are good to purchase? Do they all contain cards for all six of the houses? There seem to be so many of them, I'm not sure where to start.

Also, does the game stay pretty well balanced overall, or does it end up being dashed by a bunch of broken combos? I saw this problem in the Warhammer Invasion card game that is also made my Fantasy Flight Games. It might not matter that much for casual play, but if we did ever decide to try playing in a tournament, it would be nice to know what we'd be getting into.

Lastly a quick rule question.

When you marshal a card, can you use that card's effects on the turn you marshal it? For instance, the Starks have a Godswood card that reduces the cost of the next Stark character you play (or something like that). That ability can be used in the marshaling phase, which is also the phase when you can marshal that same card. Could you marshal Godswood, and then use its effects to get a cheaper Stark Character?

Thanks for any helps you can provide, or for sharing your thoughts. I'm eager to learn more about the game.

Venthrac said:

The decks in the starter box aren't balanced very well for 1v1 games. Stark can tend to get an early lead and since most new players focus on military more than the other 2 challenges they many times come out ahead. The starter decks really shine in multiplayer though. In normal constructed 60 card decks the game can be quite different.

Venthrac said:

Check out my site cardgamedb.com searchable database . Under Type filter by plot or agenda. There are quite a few different plots and the agendas definately are made to have decks built around them.

Venthrac said:

This writeup at boardgamegeek might help, I also have a article on my site dealing with getting started with GoT . One of the best purchases right off the bat though is a 2nd core set. I'd suggest getting that first as it provides a great base of cards to build a 60 card deck with.

Venthrac said:

all the chapter packs have cards from all 6 houses, the other products are more house specific.

Venthrac said:

No, there are powerful decks but I've not found that it plays like W:I.

Venthrac said:

yes, there is no summoning sickness in this game, so as soon as something is in play and its your turn to preform an action after that you can use it.

Darksbane has some great answers, so I'll just hit on a few things to lend my support

This game doesn't play like MTG or, in my opinion, W:I. I find the MTG competitive scene to be filled with a bunch of extremely powerful (and expensive, for that matter) decks typically played by mediocre players. In other words, I think 90% of the skill was put into deckbuilding, and oftentimes at the competitive level it felt like (at least when I played) the decklists were just taken from somewhere online anyway. In casual game play, I guess it's different depending on your friends, but I still feel like MTG lacks a lot of interesting decision making during the game. I haven't played enough W:I to form as strong an opinion, but my impressions are that the game just moves incredibly fast, and an early gamble (like playing your character in the wrong zone) can quickly lose you the game...more so than in other games.

As you mentioned, the plot phase is critical, so that it isn't only important that you pick the right plots to include...choosing the order you play them in alone can take quite a bit of skill. Similarly, the challenges phase requires a bit of practice but becomes very interesting in multiplayer, or once you have enough cards to construct/personal your deck.

On the intrigue vs. military, I think a big part of what you're finding is that (as you might guess), intrigue-heavy builds are often used in control decks. So if you have the ability to control your opponent's board position (for example, kneeling his/her characters with Lanni kneel effects, or killing the opponent's characters at just the right time with Valar), intrigue can be *very* powerful. If you lack the control pieces though, winning intrigue is going to feel very lackluster. Unfortunately, because the Core Set is balanced more for multiplayer, 1x Core Set doesn't really give you enough control to reliably do well against a military-heavy build. Adding in the second or third copies of Lanni's draw effects (especially Golden Tooth Mines and Insidious Ways) alone will make a HUGE difference, as well as multiples of the kneel effects (Enemy Informer, etc.), and adding in the second Valar you get from another Core Set to the Lanni deck.

I'll chime in and say that experiences with the core decks vary greatly. I played my first game with Lannister and won, and another player we introduced to the game shortly after that won his first game with the Lannister core deck too; it really depends on draw luck to some degree. We ran out and got more cards and a second core pretty quickly, but they seemed relatively balanced for melee play to us.

So I read the writeup at Board Game Geek. Thanks for that.

The author of that post mentions that he was not happy with the Kings of the Sea expansion, which disappointed me a bit as I'm partial to House Greyjoy. But I saw elsewhere that this set is being reprinted? Do we know what is changing and when this reprint will be out?

What's the benefit of attaching a location to a house card? For example, see Lord Eddard's Chambers. Does this act protect it somehow?

Yes, the impending reprint of Kings of the Sea will have a triplicate copy distribution instead, minus the resin house card.
See here .

As for attaching a location as an attachment per card text makes it an attachment instead of a location. This can possibly save your card, now made into an attachment, from location controls that seek to destroy or subvert it.

Venthrac said:

Basically the original printing of KotS had only 1x each card while the reprint will give you 3x of each card. It is do out soon, Spring of '11 if I remember correctly.

My girlfrid and I just started playing a few months ago and we found these few things helpfull in really geting into the game:

If youre only running 1 core set (as we still are) switching around the plots can make a Big difference. Puting Mutual Enemies or Uneasy Truce (or both) into the Lany deck can really help it out! Also, Valar is best in basically any deck other than Stark, since Starks have the best/cheapest characters in the core set Valar can really level the playing field for the non-Stark player.

Also, once you have an idea of what house or theme youd lvoe to play, just gradually build up to it with chapter packs every few weeks. It helps you get used to each card you get and since youre not playing competitavely its fine to make silly strategies (see: Sand Snakes for martells) or strange combos a focus in your deck, its a great way to get a feel for all the strenghts/weaknesses of every card in your deck and diferenciates you from someone with experience rather than someone who just batch-bought an online made deck list.

These are just things that worked well for us as we started. This is good for Joust play anyway, we havnt tried Melee at all yet and thats a totally diferent ball game! Hope this helps!

Venthrac said:

The Stark and Baratheon expansions (Lords of Winter & Kings of the Storm) seem to be the best place to start for you IMO.

They do each contain lists for two themed decks using only one core set and either the Stark or Baratheon expansion.

If you're more looking to expand Lannister, then I'd say either get a second core set or the chapter packs from the King's Landing cycle.

The Brotherhood cycle might also be a good place to start as it gives all the houses a new sub-theme to play with, resp. expands an existing one out.

Played my second game last night, and came across a few Baratheon characters how were "Immune to Character Abilities."

What exactly does that encompass? Does it include traits like Stealth or Deadly? Just card text in the text box?

Also, if I attach a location card to my house card (like Lord Eddard's Chambers), does it now count as both a location and an attachment? Can cards that specifically target attachments target the attached location?

Venthrac said:

Immune to character abilities does not include keywords (such as stealth, deadly, etc). Once you play a card as an attachment, it becomes subject to all effects that affect attachments. It is no longer considered whatever it previously was afterwards.

I had asked some questions over at BoardGameGeek as well from my first few games, realizing that I hadn't absorbed enough about the way the game plays to make good judgement calls on the game.

It's actually relatively easy to lock down Stark's military challenges with the right combination of cards. Baratheon & Targaryen were two that had a few very simple combos thrown out that within two or three cards (which you can access via plot cards like summoning season) render you essentially immune to Stark's military challenges. This can be worked around via targeted kills & other abilities, but if you're pressing the intrigue, you're depriving Stark of those options while you make essentially unopposed intrigue challenges, racking up the intrigue, and hopefully power as well (which you can protect from power challenges through infamy).

Going toe to toe with Stark militarily is kind of suicide. Their deck (especially the core deck) is just too **** fast and too strong militarily. Sit down, look at your cards, and figure out quick, easy combinations of cards to help lock down Stark, either by creating one or two characters that you can save from being killed (and thus feed them perpetually into the Stark War Machine), or by controlling your opponent's forces.

Found the FAQ, that helped tremendously.

I hope to get in more games here soon. So far I'm enjoying it, but playing with 40-card starter decks does have its limitations.

It is limiting. Which is why the decks are balanced moreso for melee than for joust.

If you manage to pick up a second starter pack, you can easily pad out all your decks to be more effective.